Upper left: Isabel Schottenbauer placed first in the girls’ junior high race at the Viking Classic cross country meet at Pincushion Mountain on September 3. Upper middle: Henry DeArruda Weaver sprints to the finish. Above: Thatcher Sunday, Sam Libby and Will Surbaugh, just a step behind, all had great races at the Viking Challenge. Far left: Andy Kern battles a Duluth East runner. Left: Matea Acero leads the Viking girls in the varsity race.
An exciting season lies ahead for Viking cross country. Returning to us, we have Jake Paron, a 10th grader from Two Harbors leading our young boys’ team. Last year was the year of the young boys’ team and this year is the year of the young girls’ team. Matea Acero and Abi Seipke, both seniors, will be finding a boost from a young crop of 7th grade girls who are showing a lot of potential. This was all revealed at the Viking Challenge this past Thursday, September 3. It was a hot afternoon up on the hill of Pincushion, despite this our Vikings raced their hearts out.
Kicking off the event were our youngsters, the junior highers, grades 7-9. We were thrilled to see how our young 7th grade girls would do against the competition.
This group was led by Isabel Schottenbauer who came in first place with a time of 10:51 for this 2.6-kilometer race. This team of girls finished ahead of Duluth East, Proctor, South Ridge and several other strong teams. Isabel was followed by a nice pack of girls. Louise Ramberg was in 3rd place with a time of 11:09, Emily Seipke was in 6th place with a time of 11:26, and Kate Walsberg was in 8th place with a time of 11:40. Our 5th runner in this event was Aurora Schelmeske with a time of 13:04.
Other 7th graders to watch for this season will be Malin Anderson, Zoe Nonnemacher, and Hazel Oberholtzer. This will be a pack that will really keep pushing each other all season to new levels. Chloe Blackburn rounded out our girls in this event by taking off 1½ minutes of her time from last year. Wow, what fun to watch that amount of improvement.
In this same race with our junior high girls were our junior high boys. They finished in 3rd behind Duluth East and South Ridge. It was fun to watch these boys improve by so much from last year.
JC Holman, an 8th grader, led the group coming in 9th place with a time of 10:57 which is an improvement of over one minute from last year. Henry DeArruda- Weaver improved by over three minutes finishing in a time of 11:35. Running 3rd for us on this team was Trent Spry who also finished with an improved time by over one minute finishing in 12:12. They were followed by Jack Willis, who will be an exciting 7th grader to watch throughout the season, and a pack of more 7th and 8th graders who are looking to improve.
This year the varsity girls are racing a 5k for the State of Minnesota. We were one of four states in the entire U.S. that had not increased the distance for girls to the 5k.
We are finally participating at this level. I am looking forward to coaching the girls at this distance. Some were a little more nervous than others for the Viking Challenge but they all finished with smiles on their faces and decided that it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be.
Matea Acero finished in 11th place today with a time of 21:44. She was followed by Abi Seipke who finished in 23:20. Maya McHugh ran 3rd for us today and finished in 24:10. These three led their varsity team to a 5th place finish.
Viking varsity boys finished in third place behind Duluth East and Moose Lake/ Willow River/ Barnum. Jake Paron raced over a minute faster than last year and finished in third place with a time of 17:16. This time was an improvement over his personal best last year, which occurred at the State Meet in November. Noah Smith improved his time from the conference meet by 30 seconds, finished in 14th place with a time of 19:03. Brenden Seipke jumped up by about one minute finishing in 20:16. Following Seipke was Will Surbaugh with a time of 20:55 and Leif Anderson in 21:30. New to our team this year is Thatcher Sunday, a 10th grader, running his 5k in 21:41 and Sam Libby, an 11th grader, running his 5k in 21:52.
We are looking forward to a strong season. Look for us at our next meet, which will be on Thursday, September 17 at the Eveleth Golf Course.
Leave a Reply